There where ever stereo tubed (valved) car radios?

[Telecolor 3007]

There where ever stereo tubed (valved) car radios? Medium Waves only or M.W. + F.M.

[Electronic M]

MW or AM broadcast as it was known in the states did not support stereo until the mid-80's (unless countries outside the US developed some standard for it that I'm unaware of).

FM MPX stereo started in 1961, so there could have been car stereos that supported it...Probably only the luxury cars Cadillac, Lincoln, (Chrysler)Imperial would have had it.

There Was also simulcast stereo where a mono AM station would broadcast the left speaker signal and an FM station would broadcast the Right (though I may have the directions reversed)...That existed from some time in the mid-50's until MPX FM stereo replaced it. I doubt a car simulcast radio was ever offered by any company...You had to have 2 independent receiver circuits (1 for each band) that would double the power consumption, size of the radio and the tuning complexity.

[old_tv_nut]

Finding any info on FM stereo car radios (vs. mono) is very hard. I found one post that indicates 1967 Toronados (and I would assume Cadillacs) had a radio with a multiplex jack. An optional stereo adaptor setup could be ordered. This doesn't make it clear if the main radio or the adapter were tube or solid state.
https://forums.aaca.org/topic/40361-...io-in-any-car/

[Sandy G]

Never seen one, but that don't mean much.. FM was sort of a "Primo" product, really until the '70s in cars anyhow, & I doubt if many, if any Tooob FM/ multiplex car tunas were made or sold.

[jr_tech]

My 1966 Delco Radio Service Manual shows multiplex adaptors for Buick, Buick Riviera, Caprice, Cheverolet Chevelle and Corvar... Cadillac and some others had the stereo built in to the radio.

Of course, these are solid state units,

jr

[Telecolor 3007]

The solid state units where the radios or the adapters?
But if you had a normal car and wanted to put a F.M. (U.S.W.) radio in the '50 and '60's you could find radios for you car?

[fixmeplease]

Im betting a search on ebay for vintage radio in the sold auto parts listings, highest price first, could show what was available. They would be sought after.

[jr_tech]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

The solid state units where the radios or the adapters?
But if you had a normal car and wanted to put a F.M. (U.S.W.) radio in the '50 and '60's you could find radios for you car?

Radios and stereo converters in my 1966 manual were all solid state. The earliest FM radio that I remember seeing was a factory radio in a ‘63 Corvette.

I believe that there were some German FM car radios in the late 50s that may have used tubes.

jr

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[Jeffhs]

There were tube-powered FM car radios in the '60s. My dad had one in his 1963 BelAir, IIRC. It was a "Titan" automobile FM radio (an adaptor, actually, as I will explain) that worked by converting the output of its FM tuner to a fixed frequency in the AM broadcast band. The Titan units, at least the one my dad had in his car, converted FM signals to 850 kHz (kc when these devices were new). This worked out fairly well in areas that did not have local AM stations on that frequency, but in regions that did have local AM on 850 the adapter may not have worked very well. In our area, near Cleveland, there is a local station on that frequency, but I think these FM adapters' modulator systems may have been broadbanded enough to allow the adapter's output to be heard on any frequency between roughly 840 and 860 kHz. I think most folks who had these adapters simply tuned the AM car radio until they heard the output of the unit, with little regard to the actual frequency the car radio was tuned to.

The output of the Titan adapters was monaural, however, not stereo. I am not sure if there was a stereo version of the Titan FM unit my dad had, or even an FM multiplex adapter jack anywhere on the adapter. I would think the latter would make a rather clunky arrangement, though, with the car's standard AM radio, the Titan adapter, and an additional adapter for stereo FM. I also wonder how many folks would tolerate having two such adapters under the dashboards of their cars, to say nothing of the cabling among them.

[old_tv_nut]

If the adapter was modulating on 850 kHz, there would be no possibility of stereo because the am radio would not be stereo.

[Telecolor 3007]

I didn't find anything on ebay.
But come one, 200-400 U.S.D. for an old car radio with tubes...

[KentTeffeteller]

Rare, which is why they're expensive. And in demand by vintage car restorers. GM began offering FM in 1963 on Oldsmobiles, and on Buicks and Corvettes. Chrysler in 1963 also began offering FM/AM factory installed sets on Imperials. Otherwise, European cars were the only others with FM (as FM was more widely used in Germany). 1965-1966 was when many mainstream car makes offered FM optionally. Ford began offering FM when the 1965 Mustang was introduced (along with the 8 track Stereo Tape cartridge players), and on Thunderbirds, by 1966, all Fords and Mercury cars had it as did Lincolns. A lot of FM converters got installed later on many cars when FM stations began gaining in number. FM began catching on in most of the USA in the 1966-1970 era. FM Stereo was slow to catch on in much of the country until 1967 or so. And many FM stations stayed mono for many years. The highest rated FM station in East Tennessee, WIVK FM 107.7 in Knoxville was built and signed on in 1966, but was mono only until major equipment upgrades in 1976,

[tubesrule]

Ford/Mercury offered AM/FM radios starting in 1963 in the Galaxie/Maurauder and Thunderbird with the Comet joining in 1964. The Mustang got AM/FM in 1965 and 8-track in 1966 (Ford was the first to offer a factory 8-track starting in Sep 1965 for the 1966 models). Aftermarket companies that built radios for specific cars like Automatic Radio offered AM/FM radios starting in 1964.

The earliest US factory FM I've had/known about was a companion unit for the 1958 Lincoln. It used tubes with a solid state vibrator power supply and connected to a dedicated jack on the factory Bendix radios.

The last of the all tube radios was for the most part in 1958. The last of the hybrid radios (space charge tubes with transistor audio outputs) was 1962. Factory multiplexed FM radios that used a companion decoder/amplifier started appearing in 1967/68 for GM and Ford.

There was never a US tube automotive FM stereo radio.